New Challenges for the Battered Women’s Movement: Building Collaborations and Improving Public Policy for Poor Women

This paper advocates the adoption of an agenda that recognizes the importance of safety, justice and economic resources for women and their families and urges that advocates pay particular attention to the concerns and interests of poor women.

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New Challenges for the Battered Women's Movement: Building Collaborations and Improving Public Policy for Poor Women by Susan Schechter (January 1999)

Susan Schechter originally presented New Challenges for the Battered Women's Movement: Building Collaborations and Improving Public Policy for Poor Women as a talk at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence Statewide Training Institute, March 17, 1997, Harrisburg, PA; it was then revised for the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence Administrative Development Conference, May 8, 1997, Ames, Iowa.

In this talk, the author challenges domestic violence advocates to explore the ways our programs and advocacy agendas are and are not meeting the needs of battered women and their children, especially those in poverty. Citing national data, she argues that the "great majority of battered women are not currently reached by battered women's programs". (Page 3) She describes her experiences in the battered women's movements, her vision of how a good collaborator acts, and presents why domestic violence and violence against women programs need to engage in many kinds of community collaborations including the development of more effective public policy.

This talk is part of the "Vision Paper Series" of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence's Building Comprehensive Solutions to Domestic Violence project.

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